Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

A 280 point beast like that should be EW in my opinion.

Synapse should be EW in general.

chrisrawr wrote:Synapse should be EW in general.

Ya, thats what we need again, 12 wounds at toughness 6, str 10 in cc and loads of shooty, armour 3+ that cannot be ID'd.... no thanks. At best, it should make them lose an extra wound from ID attacks, so wounds that would cause ID would cause 2 wounds instead. Eternal warrior tyranid warrior broods, harpy broods, and hive guard broods would be stupid in the other direction

Actually, warriors and HG are fine with EW. Try a couple games with it before you rat at it.

chrisrawr wrote:Actually, warriors and HG are fine with EW. Try a couple games with it before you rat at it.

I have. It's horrendously awesome. Like too good to be true awesome.

Scything dual bonesword shrikes are amazing with EW.

Why are you taking dual bones D: Lashbone is bestbone 4srs.

i would be the happiest person on earth if swarmlord had EW, i think it only makes sense, hes 280 points....280...sure, he has WS9 and W5 and A4, plus bonesabres, but....mindshackle scarabs or force weapons or any lotsashots AP3, hes toast...besides, he is slow as hell without fleet, so either fleet or EW would make me very super happy

Fleet? Hmmm let me think.... NO! Then he will get the charge and we are all

DreadlordME! wrote:Fleet? Hmmm let me think.... NO! Then he will get the charge and we are all

Haha, says the guy running a Purifier spam army

YES! Wait... WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY GK!? YOU GK HATERS!

I agree that the Swarmlord being who he is should have EW


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Fleet would work to

But what's the point of EW on the Swarmlord? Isn't it T6? So i can instakill him with... Force weapons (Shadow in the Warp makes it pretty rough), some DE gubbinz' (they wil poisonshot it to death anyways...) and with Sicarius' Strike of Awesomeness (oh yeah, that guy is soooo scary ...). Isn't the problem with the Swarmlord is that people can krakmissile/lascannon/melta/plasma it to death without problem?

He is the equivilent to Nid Draigo, Grimnar or Abbadon. But costs 5pts more, has no 3++ or 4++, no. 2+ armour, no deep strike. Sure, tougher and stronger with more wounds, but that won't matter with every AP3 weapon being force fed to him.

To be perfectly honest, I'd rather the Swarmlord didn't have EW.

However, I'd rather no special characters had EW.

I think it's a lazy rule, put in purely to lend an unnecessary level of 'awsome' to each designer's favourite SC.

Sorry, but no amount of prestiege or experience on the battlefield should allow you to withstand a direct hit from a siege weapon.

vipoid wrote:To be perfectly honest, I'd rather the Swarmlord didn't have EW.

However, I'd rather no special characters had EW.

I think it's a lazy rule, put in purely to lend an unnecessary level of 'awsome' to each designer's favourite SC.

Sorry, but no amount of prestiege or experience on the battlefield should allow you to withstand a direct hit from a siege weapon.

...Ghazzy?

Anyway, OT.

Yeah, and DRAIGO should sooo have EW.

guys, swarmloed is fine without EW he does have guard to protect him his brood 480 but thats 11 T6 wounds and can get a normal cover save the swarmlord is pricy but hes fine like he is, maybe lower his cost a bit

vipoid wrote:To be perfectly honest, I'd rather the Swarmlord didn't have EW.

However, I'd rather no special characters had EW.

I think it's a lazy rule, put in purely to lend an unnecessary level of 'awsome' to each designer's favourite SC.

Sorry, but no amount of prestiege or experience on the battlefield should allow you to withstand a direct hit from a siege weapon.

I don't think EW is an "experience" thing, more of a "I'm about 20 feet tall and punch buildings on a daily basis" sort of thing. EW doesn't denote experience, but rather an extraordinary toughness due to size or something else. For instance, I've created three Necron characters, and only one has EW. Why? Because his whole shtick is being able to get back up no matter what put him down. I think the people who make their characters with EW don't consider the ramifications of actually having EW until they've played a game where ID/EW came into play.

When a character has EW, whether homebrew or GW official, it needs to be paid for in points, and fully justified in a logical way by the fluff.

That was sort of ranty, but anyway, I think having EW simply makes a character/monster more menacing, and can add a lot to the character of the character, if you know what I mean. I don't think that anything in the new Necron codex has EW, come to think of it.

Does he get to re roll anything with those 2 pairs of saber?

He forces enemies to reroll invulnerables and inflicts ID.

Ahh i fought against it before and wasnt too impressed by it, ID or not his 4 hits mostly lands 2 ish.

At WS 9 and they ability to give himself Preferred Enemy?

broodstar wrote:guys, swarmloed is fine without EW he does have guard to protect him his brood 480 but thats 11 T6 wounds and can get a normal cover save the swarmlord is pricy but hes fine like he is, maybe lower his cost a bit

11 T6 wounds that's really only 4 against force weapons. Sounds good to me!

He's (mostly) fine surviving incoming fire. In CC his 4++ helps some - but it's CC only. For 475 points (almost 600 if you add a prime for some WA shens) that'd better be a REALLY effective deathstar instead of "man... that's kinda scary... I'll run away from it"

McNinja wrote:I don't think EW is an "experience" thing, more of a "I'm about 20 feet tall and punch buildings on a daily basis" sort of thing. EW doesn't denote experience, but rather an extraordinary toughness due to size or something else.

But that's the thing - most of the models that have EW are basically no different from regular commanders, who don't have EW. Take Lysander. He's basically a SM Terminator Captain. However, unlike every other terminator captain, he can simply shrug off 3 siege shells to the face.

Now, I accept that some people/creature SCs may be heavily augmented beyond what is 'normal' for their race. However, this can usually be done with increases to toughness, rather than EW.

McNinja wrote:For instance, I've created three Necron characters, and only one has EW. Why? Because his whole shtick is being able to get back up no matter what put him down.

Don't Necron Overlords essentially have EW anyway?

McNinja wrote: I think the people who make their characters with EW don't consider the ramifications of actually having EW until they've played a game where ID/EW came into play.

To be honest, I think the same is true of many codex writers. You might say that it's added into a model's cost but, IMO, they rarely pay *enough*.

EW is a really amazing ability, and often puts SCs far above both their standard counterparts, and what would be reasonably expected for their cost.

McNinja wrote:
When a character has EW, whether homebrew or GW official, it needs to be paid for in points, and fully justified in a logical way by the fluff.

Again, that's my point - EW is very rarely justified - either in fluff or in points. If you've made a character who can walk off a battle-cannon shell hit to the face, you'd better be willing to give a damn good reason for it. Furthermore, I would expect such characters to have undergone dramatic augmentation, to the point where they barely resemble their kin. Conversly, virtually all SCs with EW tend to look exactly the same as their non-SC counterparts, with maybe a bionic-eye and a nicer weapon.

McNinja wrote:
That was sort of ranty, but anyway, I think having EW simply makes a character/monster more menacing, and can add a lot to the character of the character, if you know what I mean. I don't think that anything in the new Necron codex has EW, come to think of it.

To be honest, I think EW adds too much. I can maybe understand daemons and some MCs having it, but I think that other units should avoid it. I think that SM, Eldar, DE, IG, Tau etc. heroes *should* be vulnerable to ID. They might have better skill and armour, but at heart they're still just as vulnerable as their comrades. Personally, I think this would make them far more heroic - they survive and triumph because of their tactical-prowess, skill and determination - not because they can stride invincibly around the battlefield, slaughtering anything that they touch.

Furthermore, I'd like to return to the days when characters actually *feared* MCs. When Hive Tyrants and such were avoided at all costs by characters. If a character does manage to defeat such a creature, it should be by the skin of his teeth - it should be an actual hard-won fight - not just a dull SC tearing effortlessly through said MC, with no more thought or fear than if he was swatting away a lone ripper.

Deadshot wrote:He is the equivilent to Nid Draigo, Grimnar or Abbadon. But costs 5pts more, has no 3++ or 4++, no. 2+ armour, no deep strike. Sure, tougher and stronger with more wounds, but that won't matter with every AP3 weapon being force fed to him.

You mean his Shieldwall of Tyrant Guard.

And when was the last time anyone actually had their Swarmlord suffer from Instant Death? We have a Tyranid player that uses him 3/4 of the time. Sure the plan may be to bring some Instant Death to him, but it never works out.

vipoid wrote:

Don't Necron Overlords essentially have EW anyway?

Yeah, I guess they do. RP or EL both work regardless of what caused the final wound, and they have T5 anyway, so they can only be ID'd by weapons that do it instantly or weapons that have S10.

vipoid wrote:
Again, that's my point - EW is very rarely justified - either in fluff or in points. If you've made a character who can walk off a battle-cannon shell hit to the face, you'd better be willing to give a damn good reason for it. Furthermore, I would expect such characters to have undergone dramatic augmentation, to the point where they barely resemble their kin. Conversly, virtually all SCs with EW tend to look exactly the same as their non-SC counterparts, with maybe a bionic-eye and a nicer weapon.

I agree. Draigo for instance, is only said to be adept at messing around in the warp. Nothing is really stated about how insanely tough he is, just how badass he is, and the two don't equate to the same thing.

vipoid wrote:
To be honest, I think EW adds too much. I can maybe understand daemons and some MCs having it, but I think that other units should avoid it. I think that SM, Eldar, DE, IG, Tau etc. heroes *should* be vulnerable to ID. They might have better skill and armour, but at heart they're still just as vulnerable as their comrades. Personally, I think this would make them far more heroic - they survive and triumph because of their tactical-prowess, skill and determination - not because they can stride invincibly around the battlefield, slaughtering anything that they touch.

Again, I agree. Except for Maugan Ra, because he just wanders around the galaxy casually roflstomping all over Hive Fleets. Seriously, though, I do find it very odd that the Avatar of Khaine does not have EW, yet Phoenix Lords, which function basically as the Dread Pirate Roberts, do. I mean, how fast does another Eldar get your armor, put it on, and get back into battle? Instantly. Does the dead Phoenix Lord just teleport out of his armor and another one takes his place instantly?

vipoid wrote:
Furthermore, I'd like to return to the days when characters actually *feared* MCs. When Hive Tyrants and such were avoided at all costs by characters. If a character does manage to defeat such a creature, it should be by the skin of his teeth - it should be an actual hard-won fight - not just a dull SC tearing effortlessly through said MC, with no more thought or fear than if he was swatting away a lone ripper.

Right now, I think that is the Swarmlord. You have a T6 5W 4++ save model roaming the field with 4 ID attacks. If that isn't scary, I don't know what is. I think something like Old One Eye should have EW because it is an old, very powerful Carnifex.

It all basically comes down to the fluff for the model. If you know you want that model/character to have EW, you have to consider what can cause ID, then you have to create a way for that model/character to survive that. Not just armor or skill, but legitimate toughness. How would a character survive a Force Weapon? One doesn't just shrug that sort of thing off. Also, adjusting for the cost of EW is fairly dynamic; if a model already has T5, that already disallows ID from any weapon under S10. T6 disallows ID from any weapons that don't auto-ID. At that point, EW would only help against Force weapons and other weapons that cause auto-ID, so you'd only be paying for that.

Hopefully I haven't repeated you or myself too much.

The Avatar of Khaine is a Daemon, so he has it.

vipoid wrote:To be perfectly honest, I'd rather the Swarmlord didn't have EW.

However, I'd rather no special characters had EW.

I think it's a lazy rule, put in purely to lend an unnecessary level of 'awsome' to each designer's favourite SC.

Sorry, but no amount of prestiege or experience on the battlefield should allow you to withstand a direct hit from a siege weapon.

Hmmm. . . I don't see EW as representing a character who is just SO HARDCORE (hnnngh!) that they can take a Basilisk shell to the chin and have a cheerful laugh about it later. Rather, I see as being an abstract representation of the fact that the warriors who have lived for a long time and become famous have done so at least partially because they know when to duck. Lysander having EW makes perfect sense to me; he's not just a Terminator Captain. He's famous specifically because he's survived things that Average Joe Space Marine would not survive. And you're right; physically, he's not that different from any other Space Marine. So how'd he do it? A combination of luck, skill, and almost certainly a highly-developed sense of when to get OUT of the way of the lascannon beam, or incoming artillery shell, or swinging chainfist. Now, that kind of instinct doesn't always kick in quite fast enough; he still takes a wound from those things as the lascannon rakes across his hip instead of bisecting him, or he gets caught in the blast radius of the shell but not directly hit, or the chainfist shears some fingers off the hand he threw up to deflect it instead of pulping his chest. But he isn't out of the fight yet. EW is an abstract representation of the fact that heroes are heroes specifically because they can get themselves out of scrapes like that without being killed.

Perhaps this is because I view the die-rolling of 40k to be a very abstract representation. A 'hit' doesn't necessarily mean that the bolt shell or whatever has actually, physically struck the target; it means that the shooter is firing at about the right place, and the target is in danger. A 'wound', similarly, doesn't mean a solid hit that killed the target. A Terminator might take a 'wound' and be out of action because the heat of a lascannon beam swept over him and fused all the joints in his armor together, even though he's actually fine. Hits and Wounds only mean there's a chance someone will be hurt or inconvenienced, and there's a chance that it will be bad enough (or persistent enough) that they are, at least temporarily, unable to fight any longer.

I actually like the rule, in that sense; not everyone should have it (for fluff and/or gameplay balance reasons), but there's commonly an excellent fluff justification for it. For instance, I've been writing up rules for founding members of the Traitor Legions who have survived ten millenia in the Eye of Terror, and all of them have EW. Why? Not because their flesh is capable of withstand a direct hit from a battlecannon shell or any such stupidity (well, except possibly in the case of the Rubric Marines) but because they have lived for ten millenia in the Eye of Terror. The ones who WEREN'T supernaturally good at getting out of the way of things that murder you instantly have long since died, living in that environment. The ones who are left will practically never BE there when the shell hits, and they know exactly how to turn and move so that the shockwave will do the minimum damage. That sort of thing. Of course, it's a powerful special rule, and like any powerful special rule it does need to be paid for appropriately.

On topic: I can maybe see the Swarmlord getting EW, but if he does he's going to become a 320-point beast instead of a 280-point one, or something like that. ID may not be common, but it is highly effective, so removing the possibility has to be paid for.

Deadshot wrote:The Avatar of Khaine is a Daemon, so he has it.

The Avatar of Khaine is a unit in the Eldar codex, and does not, regardless of what he is.

He is noted as being a Daemon. It is a special rule of his. Therefore he hs EW.